Murktid
Salzman Level
Murktid is a FPS multiplayer horde shooter where players choose between two distinct weapon types, ranged and melee, to shape their playstyle.
I designed this level around movement, aiming to make the player feel agile and free, with spaces that invite traversal and different ways to approach encounters. Player agency and choice are central to my design philosophy, so the layout supports multiple routes and playstyles. Looking back, I learned to be more confident with scale early on—it’s far easier to reduce space than to expand it later.
5 weeks
2 members
Unity
Github
Figma
Codecks, Google Docs
Side project
Q4 2025, Prototype
Contribution
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Research: theme and metrics for a cohesive, sense-making environment.
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Defined the spatial choreography to encourage movement, and spatial awareness.
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Level Layout: flow, pacing, and verticality.
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Gameplay focus: designed the level to complement and support the combat gameplay.
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Multiplayer: spatial metrics and co-op activities.
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Player guidance: through geometry, enemies, and vistas.
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Conducted Playtesting: feedback analysis and iterative refinement.
THE LEVEL
SECTION BREAKDOWN & WORKFLOW
The setting is a run down late 1800s brick factory, inspired by an industrial building I passed daily on my way to work in Kassel, Germany. I began by defining the levels intensity pacing before moving on to define each section. I made sure each section had its own flow and distinctive layout and that they together create a cohesive whole.
CHOREOGRAPHING SPACE
My perspective as a dancer leads me to focus on the playable space I’m shaping, rather than on the structures themselves.
Concept & Design Intent
While crafting this level, I practiced listening to the needs of the gameplay, making it my first priority. I visualized how the game would play out and played reference titles like Left 4 dead or Warhammer: 40,000 Darktide.
I focused on shaping the playable space in between the structures, I think of this space like a flowing river: the player should keep moving, circling, and returning, never face-planting into dead ends, but instead being forked, funnelled, spiralled, and released.
Fork, Funnel, Spiral & Releas
MOVEMENT & RYTHM
Playtests showed the importance of larger encounter spaces and traversal paths between events
The level is designed for 2–4 player co-op, which meant ensuring enough room, traversal options, and engagement opportunities for multiple players simultaneously. I tackled this by focusing on movement: crafting spaces that open up and close in, shift in height and direction, and include simple puzzles to keep players active.
As player movement evolved—especially with dodge mechanics and sprint slides—the space turned out to be too cramped. Adding enemies and dynamic combat further highlighted the need for larger encounter spaces. Playtests also showed that encounters were placed too close together. To break up the intense pattern and give players a breather, I added traversal paths between encounters.
Vistas & Point of no Return
LEVEL EVENTS
I designed the puzzles to give the players’ goal to work towards and to provide structure to the rhythm of the level.
To add structure and replayability, I designed a simple encounter puzzle: organic nests that block progression. Each nest must be destroyed to move forward, and they are placed apart to encourage players to circle the space. This reinforces the core movement philosophy of continuous flow. I added roots connecting the "mother-nest" to the tentacles for guidance. Playtest feedback showed this visual language worked well, even during intense combat.
In the final arena, the boss is enclosed within three nests, with tentacles spread across the entire space, including four height differences. This ensures all players have enough to do and must plan together to cover all areas.
I created a prototype in C#, as seen in the video, to test the nest mechanic.
Nest Puzzle
TAKE AWAYS
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Create metrics early together with the gameplay/combat designer and stick to them - this helped me a lot when iterating and rebuilding the space.
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Playtest often and in actual builds.
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Build small, self-contained chunks that can be recombined in different ways.
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Clear metrics allow for faster iteration and greater flexibility.
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Keep spaces clean and simple for readability, avoid cluttered skylines with unnecessary height variation.
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Focus on the playable space rather than the structures within it - this led to a much deeper understanding of player movement, flow, and pacing.